Updated: August 2, 2011. (Current Associates: See what's changed)
This Associates Program Operating Agreement (“Operating Agreement”) contains the terms and conditions that govern your participation in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (the “Program”). “We,” “us,” or “our” means Amazon Services LLC or any of its affiliate companies (excluding those that sell retail products), as the case may be. “You” or “your” means the applicant. A “site” means a website. “Amazon Site” means the amazon.com site, the endless.com site, the smallparts.com site, or the myhabit.com site, as applicable. “Your site” means any site(s) and any software application(s) that you link to the Amazon Site.
BY CHECKING THE BOX INDICATING THAT YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS OPERATING AGREEMENT, OR BY CONTINUING TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROGRAM FOLLOWING OUR POSTING OF A CHANGE NOTICE, REVISED OPERATING AGREEMENT, OR REVISED OPERATIONAL DOCUMENTATION ON THE AMAZON.COM SITE, YOU (A) AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THIS OPERATING AGREEMENT; (B) ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU HAVE INDEPENDENTLY EVALUATED THE DESIRABILITY OF PARTICIPATING IN THE PROGRAM AND ARE NOT RELYING ON ANY REPRESENTATION, GUARANTEE, OR STATEMENT OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THIS OPERATING AGREEMENT; AND (C) HEREBY REPRESENT AND WARRANT THAT YOU ARE LAWFULLY ABLE TO ENTER INTO CONTRACTS (E.G., YOU ARE NOT A MINOR) AND THAT YOU ARE AND WILL REMAIN IN COMPLIANCE WITH THIS OPERATING AGREEMENT, INCLUDING THEASSOCIATES PROGRAM PARTICIPATION REQUIREMENTS.
IN ADDITION, IF THIS OPERATING AGREEMENT IS BEING AGREED TO BY A COMPANY OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, THEN THE PERSON AGREEING TO THIS OPERATING AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF THAT COMPANY OR ENTITY HEREBY REPRESENTS AND WARRANTS THAT HE OR SHE IS AUTHORIZED AND LAWFULLY ABLE TO BIND THAT COMPANY OR ENTITY TO THIS OPERATING AGREEMENT.1. Description of the Program
The purpose of the Program is to permit you to advertise Products on your site and to earn advertising fees for Qualifying Purchases (defined in Section 7) made by your end users. A “Product” is any item sold on the Amazon Site, other than any product that is listed on this page (collectively, “Excluded Products”). Product may also include certain services, if any, expressly included on theAssociates Program Advertising Fee Schedule. In order to facilitate your advertisement of Products, we may make available to you data, images, text, link formats, widgets, links, and other linking tools, and other information in connection with the Program ("Content"). Content specifically excludes any data, images, text, or other information or content relating to products offered on any site other than the Amazon Site.2. Enrollment
To begin the enrollment process, you must submit a complete and accurate Program application. You must identify your site in your application. We will evaluate your application and notify you of its acceptance or rejection. We may reject your application if we determine that your site is unsuitable. Unsuitable sites include those that:(a) promote or contain sexually explicit materials;
(b) promote violence or contain violent materials;
(c) promote or contain libelous or defamatory materials;
(d) promote discrimination, or employ discriminatory practices, based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age;
(e) promote or undertake illegal activities;
(f) include any trademark of Amazon or its affiliates, or a variant or misspelling of a trademark of Amazon or its affiliates, in any domain name – for example, a domain name such as <endlessboots.com>, <amaozn.com>, <smallpartsstore.com>, <amazonauctions.net>, <kindlemagazines.mydomain.info>, or <kindlewirelessreader.co.uk> would be unsuitable;
(g) include any trademark of Amazon or its affiliates in any username, group name, or other identifier on any social networking website – for example, a username such as “Endless Shoes,” “Amazon Japan,” “Smallparts Hardware,” or “Kindle For You” registered on a social networking site such as Twitter or Facebook would be unsuitable; or
(h) otherwise violate intellectual property rights.
If we reject your application, you are welcome to reapply at any time. However, if we accept your application and we later determine that your site is unsuitable, we may terminate this Operating Agreement.
You will ensure that the information in your Program application and otherwise associated with your account, including your email address and other contact information and identification of your site, is at all times complete, accurate, and up-to-date. We may send notifications (if any), approvals (if any), and other communications relating to the Program and this Operating Agreement to the email address then-currently associated with your Program account. You will be deemed to have received all notifications, approvals, and other communications sent to that email address, even if the email address associated with your account is no longer current.
In addition, if at any time following your enrollment in the Program you become a resident of Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, or Connecticut, you will become ineligible to participate in the Program, and this Operating Agreement will automatically terminate, on the date you establish residency in that state. In addition, you must promptly notify us in writing of your Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, or Connecticut residency, which you may do via the Contact Associates Customer Service form available here.
3. Links on Your Site
After you have been notified that you have been accepted into the Program, you may display Special Links on your site. “Special Links” are links to the Amazon Site that you place on your site in accordance with this Operating Agreement, that properly utilize the special “tagged” link formats we provide, and that comply with the Associates Program Linking Requirements. Special Links permit accurate tracking, reporting, and accrual of advertising fees.You may earn advertising fees only as described in Section 7 and only with respect to activity on the Amazon Site occurring directly through Special Links. We will have no obligation to pay you advertising fees if you fail to properly format the links on your site to the Amazon Site as Special Links, including to the extent that such failure may result in any reduction of advertising fee amounts that would otherwise be paid to you under this Operating Agreement.
4. Program Requirements
By participating in the Program, you agree that you will comply with the Associates Program Participation Requirements and all pages, schedules, policies, guidelines, and other documents and materials referenced in this Operating Agreement (collectively, “Operational Documentation”).You will provide us with any information that we request to verify your compliance with this Operating Agreement or any Operational Documentation. If we determine that you have not complied with any requirement or restriction described on the Associates Program Participation Requirements page or any other Operational Documentation or that you have otherwise violated this Operating Agreement, we may (in addition to any other rights or remedies available to us) withhold any advertising fees payable to you under this Operating Agreement, terminate this Operating Agreement, or both.
In addition, you hereby consent to us:
- sending you emails relating to the Program from time to time;
- monitoring, recording, using, and disclosing information about your site and visitors to your site that we obtain in connection with your display of Special Links (e.g., that a particular Amazon customer clicked through a Special Link from your site before buying a Product on the Amazon Site) in accordance with the Amazon.com Associates Privacy Notice; and
- monitoring, crawling, and otherwise investigating your site to verify compliance with this Operating Agreement and the Operational Documentation.
5. Responsibility for Your Site
You will be solely responsible for your site, including its development, operation, and maintenance and all materials that appear on or within it. For example, you will be solely responsible for:- the technical operation of your site and all related equipment;
- displaying Special Links and Content on your site in compliance with this Operating Agreement and the Operational Documentation and any agreement between you and any other person or entity (including any restrictions or requirements placed on you by any person or entity that hosts your site);
- creating and posting, and ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and appropriateness of, materials posted on your site (including all Product descriptions and other Product-related materials and any information you include within or associate with Special Links);
- using the Content, your site, and the materials on or within your site in a manner that does not infringe, violate, or misappropriate any of our rights or those of any other person or entity (including copyrights, trademarks, privacy, publicity or other intellectual property or proprietary rights);
- disclosing on your site accurately and adequately, either through a privacy policy or otherwise, how you collect, use, store, and disclose data collected from visitors, including, where applicable, that third parties (including us and other advertisers) may serve content and advertisements, collect information directly from visitors, and place or recognize cookies on visitors’ browsers; and
- any use that you make of the Content and the Amazon Marks, whether or not permitted under this Operating Agreement.
We will have no liability for these matters or for any of your end users’ claims relating to these matters, and you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us, our affiliates and licensors, and our and their respective employees, officers, directors, and representatives, harmless from and against all claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including attorneys’ fees) relating to (a) your site or any materials that appear on your site, including the combination of your site or those materials with other applications, content, or processes; (b) the use, development, design, manufacture, production, advertising, promotion, or marketing of your site or any materials that appear on or within your site, and all other matters described in this Section 5; (c) your use of any Content, whether or not such use is authorized by or violates this Operating Agreement, any Operational Documentation, or applicable law; (d) your violation of any term or condition of this Operating Agreement or any Operational Documentation; or (e) your or your employees' negligence or willful misconduct.
6. Order Processing
We will process Product orders placed by customers who follow Special Links from your site to the Amazon Site. We reserve the right to reject orders that do not comply with any requirements on the Amazon Site, as they may be updated from time to time. We will track Qualifying Purchases (defined in Section 7) for reporting and advertising fee accrual purposes and will make available to you reports summarizing those Qualifying Purchases.7. Advertising Fees
We will pay you advertising fees on Qualifying Purchases in accordance with Section 8 and the Associates Program Advertising Fee Schedule. Subject to the exclusions set forth below, a “Qualifying Purchase” occurs when (a) a customer clicks through a Special Link on your site to the Amazon Site; (b) during a single Session that customer either (i) adds a Product to his or her shopping cart and places the order for that Product no later than 89 days following the customer’s initial click-through, (ii) purchases a Product via our 1-Click feature, or (iii) streams or downloads a Product from the Amazon Site if the Product is a Digital Product; and (c) the Product is shipped to or streamed or downloaded by, and paid for by, the customer.A “Session” begins when a customer clicks through a Special Link on your site to the Amazon Site and ends upon the first to occur of the following: (x) 24 hours elapses from the customer’s initial click-through; (y) the customer places an order for a Product that is not a Digital Product; or (z) the customer follows a link to the Amazon Site that is formatted with an Associate’s tag that is not assigned to you.
A “Digital Product” is a Product sold under the name “Amazon MP3,” “Amazon Shorts,” “eDocs,” “Amazon Instant Video,” “Amazon Software Downloads,” “Game Downloads,” and “Kindle Books,” “Kindle Newspapers,” “Kindle Blogs,” “Kindle Newsfeeds,” or “Kindle Magazines.”
Qualifying Purchases exclude, and we will not pay advertising fees on any of, the following:
- any Product that, after expiration of the applicable Session, is added to a customer’s Shopping Cart, is purchased by a customer via our 1-Click feature, or is streamed or downloaded by a customer, even if the customer previously followed a Special Link from your site to the Amazon Site;
- any Product purchase that is not correctly tracked or reported because the links from your site to the Amazon Site are not properly formatted;
- any Product purchased through a Special Link by you or on your behalf, including Products you purchase through Special Links for yourself, friends, relatives, or associates (e.g., personal orders, orders for your own use, and orders placed by you for or on behalf of any other person or entity);
- any Product purchased for resale or commercial use of any kind;
- any Product purchased after termination of this Operating Agreement;
- any Product order that is canceled or returned; and
- any Product purchased by a customer who is referred to the Amazon Site through any of the following:
- a Prohibited Paid Search Placement; or
- a link to the Amazon Site, including a Redirecting Link, that is generated or displayed on a Search Engine in response to a general Internet search query or keyword (i.e., in natural, free, organic, or unpaid search results), whether those links appear through your submission of data to that site or otherwise.
“Prohibited Paid Search Placement” means an advertisement that you purchased through bidding on keywords, search terms, or other identifiers (including Proprietary Terms) or other participation in keyword auctions. “Proprietary Term” means keywords, search terms, or other identifiers that include the word “amazon,” “endless,” “Kindle,” “smallparts,” “myhabit,” or “Javari,” or any other trademark of Amazon or its affiliates, or variations or misspellings of any of those words (e.g., “ammazon,” “amaozn,” “endlss,” “enldess,” “smalparts,” “kindel,” and “javary”). “Redirecting Link” means a link that sends users indirectly to the Amazon Site via an intermediate site or webpage and without requiring the user to click on a link or take some other affirmative action on that intermediate site or webpage. “Search Engine” means Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine, portal, sponsored advertising service, or other search or referral service, or any site that participates in any of their respective networks.
8. Advertising Fee Payment
We will pay you advertising fees on a monthly basis for Qualifying Purchases shipped, streamed, or downloaded (as applicable) in a given month, subject to any applicable withholding or deduction described below. We will pay you approximately 60 days following the end of each calendar month using the payment method you choose from the following available options. If you have not selected one of the payment methods below, we will withhold any unpaid accrued advertising fees until you have done so.(a) Payment by Direct Deposit. If you select payment by direct deposit, we will directly deposit the advertising fees you earn into the bank account you designate, but may accrue and withhold advertising fees until the total amount due to you is at least $10. If you select this method of payment, you must provide us with the name of your bank, the bank account type, the 9-digit routing number/ABA number, the account number, and the name of the primary account holder as it appears on the account.
(b) Payment by Amazon.com Gift Card. If you select payment by amazon.com gift card, we will send you a gift card in the amount of the advertising fees you earn, redeemable for products on amazon.com, but we may accrue and withhold advertising fees until the total amount due to you is at least $10. All amazon.com gift cards will be subject to our then-current standard gift card terms and conditions.
(c) Payment by Check. If you select payment by check, we will send you a check in the amount of the advertising fees you earn, but we may accrue and withhold advertising fees until the total amount due to you is at least $100. We will deduct a processing fee in the amount of $15 from the advertising fees payable to you for each check we send to you.
If you have not earned any advertising fees in the 3 years prior to any given calendar month, then on the first day of that calendar month we may charge you an account maintenance fee that will be deducted from your unpaid accrued advertising fees. That account maintenance fee will be the lesser of $10 or the amount of unpaid accrued advertising fees in your account. Further, any unpaid accrued advertising fees in your account may be subject to escheatment under state law. We may be obligated by law to obtain tax information from you if you are a U.S. citizen, U.S. resident, or U.S. corporation, or if your business is otherwise taxable in the U.S. If we request tax information from you and you do not provide it to us, we may (in addition to any other rights or remedies available to us) withhold your advertising fees until you provide this information or otherwise satisfy us that you are not a person from whom we are required to obtain tax information.
9. Policies and Pricing
Customers who buy products through this Program are our customers with respect to all activities they undertake in connection with the Amazon Site. Accordingly, as between you and us, all pricing, terms of sale, rules, policies, and operating procedures concerning customer orders, customer service, and product sales set forth on the Amazon Site will apply to those customers, and we may change them at any time.10. Identifying Yourself as an Associate
You will not issue any press release or make any other public communication with respect to this Operating Agreement, your use of the Content, or your participation in the Program. You will not misrepresent or embellish the relationship between us and you (including by expressing or implying that we support, sponsor, endorse, or contribute to any charity or other cause), or express or imply any relationship or affiliation between us and you or any other person or entity except as expressly permitted by this Operating Agreement. You must, however, clearly state the following on your site: “[Insert your name] is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to [insert the applicable site name (amazon.com, endless.com, smallparts.com or myhabit.com)].”11. Limited License
Subject to the terms of this Operating Agreement and solely for the limited purposes of advertising Products on, and directing end users to, the Amazon Site in connection with the Program, we hereby grant you a limited, revocable, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to (a) copy and display the Content solely on your site; and (b) use only those of our trademarks and logos that we may make available to you as part of Content (those trademarks and logos, collectively, “Amazon Marks”) solely on your site and in accordance with the Associates Program Trademark Guidelines.The license set forth in this Section 11 will immediately and automatically terminate if at any time you do not timely comply with any obligation under this Operating Agreement or any Operational Documentation, or otherwise upon termination of this Operating Agreement. In addition, we may terminate the license set forth in this Section 11 in whole or in part upon written notice to you. You will promptly remove from your site and delete or otherwise destroy all of the Content and Amazon Marks with respect to which the license set forth in this Section 11 is terminated or as we may otherwise request from time to time.
